26 Seized Moments
by Netbug009
Summary: 26 one shots featuring everything from super smart stepbrothers to semi-aquatic espionage. Yes, it's the alphabet challenge. Possibly some canon ships later if I feel like it.
1. A

**26 Seized Moments**

 **A/N:** Hello, everybody! I've been wanting to write some Phineas and Ferb ficlets and apparently there's a little challenge in this fandom where you write one story for each letter of the alphabet, so I figured why not?

(You may have previously seen this posted on my old account. It's being transferred to my new one and I'm getting back on this challenge, because the series ending gave me all the feels. All of them.)

Critique and suggestions for future installments are more than welcome.

 **A is for Anger**

Trust.

It was his one uncertainty. His one weakness. It was the one button you could press to truly make Phineas angry, and Perry had managed to mash the button to breaking point in a matter of seconds. And by trying to _protect_ the boys, no less.

Did the word's on the pamphlet Phineas had tossed in a fit really justify everything he'd done? It wasn't the first time he'd felt guilt for leaving his family out of the loop, but every other time he'd quickly dismissed those feelings with truth: he needed to protect his loved ones. To protect the boy standing enraged before him now. And Ferb. And even Candace.

He'd never really thought this deeply about how his family might feel if they knew. They weren't _supposed_ to know. And if they did find out, they were _supposed_ to read the pamphlet. And the pamphlet was _supposed_ to fully vindicate him. But he didn't feel like it would have vindicated him even in a best case scenario. But maybe Phineas could stand to trust him more too, and... It was a complete mess, and Perry could only look away from Phineas as the boy lambasted him with a mess of questions.

What would he have said if he could have spoken? Perry wasn't sure himself.


	2. B

**B is for Binders**

Word had been passed through the teachers' lounge about a pair of brothers who got up at 6am to build extraordinary things, so when Phineas and Ferb were late to their first day of school, their first-period teacher was dumbfounded. She'd expected the boys to arrive early, toolboxes in hand (even though this was history class.)

She was _half_ right.

An hour after class begun, the loud beeping of a dump truck sounded in the schoolyard. It was loaded to the brim with binders upon binders full of APA formatted text, each numbered and labeled: "What I Did on My Summer Vacation."

"Sorry we're late," the young redhead said as he exited the passenger's side with his brother, "but the driver got stuck in rush hour, and we couldn't find another way to get our assignment here that wouldn't have taken even longer."


	3. C

A/N: Phinbella. Spoilers for "Act Your Age."

* * *

 **C is for College (Phineas Flynn Always Keeps A Promise)**

Every Friday like clockwork, Phineas and Isabella would meet up at the campus café no matter how many extra credit assignments he hadn't finished or how much student government tried to monopolize her free time.

"One large double-shot in the dark for me, and one medium caramel chai breve with agave syrup and extra whip for the lovely lady, please." Isabella said he didn't have to loudly proclaim her beauty every time he ordered coffee for her, but the blush on her face betrayed her. Besides, he'd spent way too long not saying corny things like that to her.

Phineas was eternally thankful that Isabella's patience, and not just because she'd waited over 10 years for him to return her feelings. It seemed just as miraculous that she'd put up with him for over a semester of study dates that would almost always devolve into the same thing by hour's end: Phineas talking about memories he made with his step-brother.

"One time Ferb..."

"Then Ferb was like…"

"Haha, that reminds me of when Ferb…"

It'd taken him longer than it probably should have to notice the glazed look in Isabella's eyes by ten minutes into him rambling about something he and Ferb had done as kids (which, more often than not, she'd also been around for anyway.) Once he noticed, he tried to tone in down, but more often than not time taken away from discussing Ferb was spent apologizing for going on the tangent in the first place rather than talking something Isabella was more interested in.

And that was just on their dates. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd asked Isabella to help him with a project and had called for his brother when he needed a wrench. In retrospect, he had never really thought about how the person he spent his entire childhood bouncing ideas off of every day was going to be in another country for at least four years. Compared to huddling together around a blueprint, each holding one end of a steel beam, and tossing a box of nails across the lawn, video calls left a lot to be desired.

It wasn't until he was walking her home on a dark winter evening that he realized just how badly he'd messed up.

"Hey, are you really okay with things the way they are?" Isabella asked, tightening her shaky grip on his hand.

It was one thing for Phineas to make Isabella annoyed; that happened fairy often, and she would always explain in great detail exactly what he'd done to ruffle her feathers. It was a whole other thing for him to make Isabella _worry._ "Wait, what?"

"It's just… you two are a team. You always used to do everything together. I…" She stared at her feet, "It's not like I wouldn't want to be your girlfriend if we didn't go to the same school. You could have gone to the same school as Ferb, right? I mean…"

"…Waitwaitwait." He flailed his free hand in the air and tried to process what Isabella was saying. "…Have… you been blaming yourself for Ferb and I going to different schools?"

"Well, if the acceptance letter fi-"

"Hey, c'mere." Phineas took Isabella's other hand and took a step closer to her. "Ferb wanted to spend some time in the country he was born in, and I wanted to stay close to home. But even if I'd been thinking of going to school on _another planet_ , it was _my_ choice to go to college with you. This is what _I_ want to do."

"Yeah, but-"

"But nothing." He smiled warmly. "Leave worrying about the Atlantic Ocean to me, okay? No matter what, I'm not going to lose either of my two favorite people. I promise." He didn't let Isabella protest before kissing her under the starry sky.

Sure, he'd recently started to realize he had the emotional empathy of a slab of concrete, and needed to work on his habit of talking like the other person wouldn't have more than one sentence to respond with, but both he and Isabella were well aware he always kept a promise.


End file.
